I’m out of town this week on a hiking trip with some of our youth from the church (returning today as a matter of fact, Lord willing), so I thought I would reprint an article I wrote some years back for the Jym Shorts column. I think it is a story worth reading again, and since it is my article, I can do this sort of thing. : )
Sometimes God shows up in unexpected ways. In 1619, when many believers in England were considering an arduous journey to the New World in order to experience religious freedom, one man was boarding a ship for the Americas for a completely different reason - he was trying to get back home.
In 1605 a Native American by the name of Tisquantum (Squanto was the name he was actually called) was captured by a British sailor and brought back to England, where he learned English. After nine years, he returned to his people (the Patuxets on Cape Cod) with Captain John Smith. After only a short stay back in Cape Cod, Squanto was tricked onto another English sailing vessel, captured, and sold into the Spanish slave trade. Other Native Americans captured with Squanto never saw their homeland again, but Squanto was traded to some local friars in Spain and introduced to Christianity. After his conversion, Squanto was allowed to leave for England, where he once again found passage on a vessel bound for the New World. He arrived back in Cape Cod to find out that a smallpox outbreak in 1617 had killed everyone in his tribe.
If you know American history, you know that the Pilgrims arrived off of Cape Cod in 1620, settling in a small village they called Plymouth after the British city from which they had fled. The Pilgrims found much of the land already cleared for farming, but no one around to farm it. After a very hard winter in which many of the Pilgrims died, a Native American named Samoset, who spoke broken English learned from British sailors, walked into Plymouth and informed the inhabitants that they had settled on the land of the Patuxets, a fierce tribe that had been wiped out by disease and whose land no Indian would settle because of the "death curse" on it. Samoset introduced the Pilgrims to Squanto, the only remaining Patuxet. It was Squanto who taught the Pilgrims how to farm the land and to fertilize the crops, in addition to showing them the best fishing and hunting grounds. Squanto saved the Pilgrims. One Pilgrim leader wrote about him, "He is a special instrument sent of God for our good, beyond our expectation." God had providentially brought the Pilgrims to the safest spot on the east coast for quick habitation, and provided an English-speaking guide. All that had to happen prior to their arrival was Squanto's slavery, the death of everyone he knew as a child and young man, and years of travel away from his homeland.
And so, that which seems completely devoid of anything humane or positive was used by God not only for Squanto's salvation, but for the good of many people. The Pilgrims might not have survived another winter without him. Our study in 1 Peter reminds us of the good that suffering can bring into the life of a follower of Christ. It is never easy, and should not be courted, but it should also never cause us to lose faith in the grace and mercy of a good God. God has a tendency to show up in these difficult times, and almost always in unexpected ways.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jym